History of the EduTools Site
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1996
The "Standing Committee on Educational Technology" (SCOET)
issued a call for proposals to the British Columbia (B.C.) postsecondary
system. SCOET selected the proposal entitled "Comparative analysis
of Educational Computer Communications Software,"; written by Bruce
Landon. The proposal called for the design and development of a
website, called C2T2, which consolidated the work of several different
Canadian agencies, including SCOET. C2T2 provided users with a system
to compare the features of various course management software products.
It also provided
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quick access to the web-based data
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manipulation of assessment values to adapt to specific institutional needs
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ability to expand the site to include more applications over time
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a model for other quantitative research projects
1997
Work on C2T2 began in 1997. Dr. Landon worked with volunteers from
the B.C. postsecondary system to guide the development of the research
study including defining criteria for the selection of instructional
software applications and assigning relative weights to those criteria.
The initial site divided the products into integrated versus component products. The C2T2 staff provided information on 15 features for each product (compared to a high of 63 in 2000).
1998
In April 1998, the C2T2 staff submitted the Report on the Comparative Analysis of Educational Computer Communications Software Project.
The C2T2 staff sought participants from across North America and around the world to evaluate the course management software products. Evaluators completed a short, online survey about each product. The C2T2 staff also gathered additional information about each product from the product vendors and from case studies at various educational institutions.
User feedback indicated that users found the site well-organized and widely shared, with more than 100 websites providing links to this site. Traffic analysis indicated that feature comparisons were visited most often by site users.
Based on user feedback and site traffic data, the C2T2 staff redesigned the site in the fall of 1998. These changes included adding additional course management products and providing a side by side view of product features in a table that had the products across the top row and the various features down the left column. Additionally, the C2T2 staff eliminated the division of integrated versus component products.
1999
The C2T2 site expanded. The staff added additional course management
products and product features. The number of hits on and links to
the site also increased. The C2T2 staff dropped the three-prong
method for determining importance weights because locating raters
was too difficult.
2000
In Fall 2000, Bruce Landon attended the annual WCET conference and
discussed with Russell Poulin, a WCET Program Director, the C2T2
website, its potential, and the need for additional resources to
maintain and upgrade the site. WCET and Bruce Landon began to work
together to seek funding for the C2T2 site.
2001
In April, 2001, WCET received a major grant from the William and
Flora Hewlett Foundation to support several critical eLearning projects,
including the redevelopment and redesign of the C2T2 site.
The grant also provided funding for the development of three new companion websites. The focus of these three new sites was to enable users to apply the same C2T2 decision-making model to comparisons of the following:
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electronic student support services software
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instructional software, and
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policies relating to the use of educational technologies
WCET and C2T2 entered into a partnership to develop the new website.
2002
The C2T2 site was redesigned and renamed. The new name was "EduTools";
and it was launched in the Fall of 2002. Bruce Landon was a Senior
Advisor on this project and WCET became the owner and was responsible
for all maintenance and continuous improvement of the site.
Special thanks to the C2T2 contributors